Orchestra plays old notes

Seventy years ago the average West End comedy focused upon the naughtiness of upper-middle-class people. These types contemplated fornication or discreet adultery from the safety of smart drawing rooms.

So, in retrospect, it is unsurprising that this 1932 vacuous comic-melodrama by Rodney Ackland, which shines a small light upon middle-class young bohemians, mildly living it up in a Pimlico boarding house, was taken as a radical step in a fresh theatrical direction. But although Ellie Jones's finely tuned, wellacted production revels in Ackland's gusto and his ability to write for several, competitive chattering voices, she cannot disguise the fact that Strange Orchestra strikes no new notes.

The characters are down-atheel poor relations of Noël Coward's, without the saving grace of humour and they all sound the same.The plot-lines are almost non-existent. Ackland did not do plots. The play is best at conjuring up the manners and mores of frivolous, middle-class bohemians who are into partying and romancing. The emptiness of their indefatigable chatter becomes oppressive and Ackland's flippant, satirical view of them serves only to make them more trivial, though Christopher Harper's ukulele-playing, silly-ass appeals.

Ishia Bennion puts on a delightful show of lazy sophistication as the oncewas, still-is randy landlady. Meanwhile odd bits of unbelievable plot lividly flash before us and then vanish.

One of Vera's daughter's (appealing Claudia Elmhirst) is secretly going blind, but not before suffering exploitation by Ian Duncan's cad, masquerading in a threepiece suit as an artist. And a young married couple try to gas themselves for no good reason, unless to rescue us from the boredom of Ackland's boisterous jollity. Other romances and rivalries pass by inconsequentially like strangers in a crowd.